I'm holding an Ouya controller in my hand and I'm actually having fun. Yes, this surprises even curmudgeonly old me. I'm still fighting with the controller's steadfast determination to lag, and I'm angry with its sticky keys and its squeaky triggers and its silly, prone-to-falling-apart battery casing design, but damn it I'm having fun.

I'm playing Duck Game. It's a competitive local-multiplayer-only game much like Samurai Gunn or fellow Ouya offering Towerfall. You're a duck, you pick up guns, and you run around a 2D pixel-art environment shooting your friends, then taunting them whenever you win. (Taunting optional, but encouraged.)

Unlike Towerfall or Samurai Gunn, where everyone starts on an even playing field, you and your three friends must run around the map and snatch guns off the ground. This leads to hilarious moments where you're frantically reloading a musket while your friend tries to nail the perfect grenade lob in your direction. There are a ton of different stages set up, and the map order seems entirely random. Occasionally this breaks down and you're stuck playing the same map four or five times in a row, but even that situation can be hilarious with the right group of friends.

Apparently the game even has a story? This is what the game's store page says:

"Enter the universe of DUCK GAME. The futuristic year is 1984 - and ducks have covered the known world with brutalist office spaces, factories, and construction projects. Fueled by a colossal military- and defense-weapons industry, the ruling government of Duck World recently installed instant-access weapon portals within every office space and simulated forest environment in the spirit of convenient self defense."

Yeah, it's that type of game.

A few high-concept maps really stand out—one, for instance, incorporates teleports. While you'll have to understand the ins and outs of these teleports to move effectively around the map, our group was amazed when we discovered we could also shoot through the teleports and our bullets would carry on the other side.

It's a silly game, but one that's great for throwing on a few rounds at a time or playing at a party. It's the first occasion I've really sank a ton of time into an Ouya game since Towerfall all those many months ago, and it's funny to see that it's for almost the exact same type of game. Of course, Towerfall eventually abandoned the grim shores of Ouya-land for the green vales of PC and PlayStation 4 freedom, and sold a lot of copies in the process. And there was much rejoicing.

I'm hoping Duck Game eventually does the same, but for now it's locked on the Ouya alone. That's great news if you've been looking for an excuse to wipe the accumulated dust from the top of your Ouya (or wipe the dust off the side, if you have it laying down to reduce controller lag).

Duck Game is out now, and available on the Ouya marketplace.

This story, "Wild duck-on-duck violence makes Duck Game the Ouya's new best game" was originally published by
TechHive.

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